Someone was told me...

That I could do whatever I wanted, that I had so much potential, that I was going to be someone.

When people remember this they either think they're crazy for believing this or don't think that it is true.

Maybe I am crazy for always believing it, in my little girl mind this has only grown to an insane passion to do something so great.

On days where I am so overwhelmed or put down, I remember all the people who have led me here.

Last Friday night I went to go see Cornel West speak, among many other great intellectuals here. What an honor to be in his presence, I thought reading his words was amazing, hearing him, seeing him is so empowering!

This is a quote of his:

"I have tried to be a [wo]man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it."
— Cornel West

Hope!

Thought of home today...

I think I told most of you,but I was offered my mentor's job for next semester. So right now I'm in the process of shadowing her; going to meetings and helping her complete tasks for the organization which is called CMI(Columbia Mentoring Initiative) and it's a great program that I took advantage of first semester. My consistency with the program is pretty much why I got the job offer. Anywho, weekly meetings are Wednesday mornings...at 9. It's tough, I never am up that early. But I'm starting to appreciate it because I get up early and get little things done, I feel more accomplished. After the meeting today, I didn't have class until 1, so I took a little trip to Harlem to handle a situation and then did a little shopping. I love my little trips to Harlem, they remind me of home so much. I also had my interview to live in the InterCultural House next semester, odds are slim, there are only 12 spots open for all years. So we'll see. I'm excited for the weekend, even though I really do have to spend some time in Butler(our library). Ugh. But, tomorrow= Dear John. I can't wait. InterVarsity large group meeting, yay worship. And hopefully Brooklyn (please Tanea and Diane read this and go!) and some pie? :) I'm hoping...

Zzzz..
Jessy!

P.S. Photo of Sheila(sp), Irvin, and me on Oovoo. I should have been reading Augustine's Confessions. Oh well. :)

Good Friends are so good when they're in need...

The last couple of days have been so hectic, these 21 credits are proving to be difficult but I'm so happy. They might mean late nights and superpacked days but I'm not giving them up. :) This crazy time has showed me how lucky I am, I have such good friends here at Columbia. I don't know, I look around and I see a lot of forced and fake friendships around, people are more concerned with quantity than quality. Well, I'm not like that, I've always preferred to have few friends who are real. In the last couple of days, I've had someone to hold my hand, fingers up my nose(long, sad story), and friends to laugh with. That's so beautiful on this campus. I have especially been thankful for Brandon, who is such a ball of joy and energy. I know he has friend issues but he really does mean a lot to me and I hope he keeps bugging me all the time because his late night segment on Columbia's radio is awesome and he makes me tea when I'm sick. Besides, reenacting Atlanta girl on the Marta train is too much fun. I hope I always have the group of friends I have now.

-Love love love,
Me

No more procrastinating...as I procrastinate. Bogota, I love you.

Okay, this Colombia Post is long overdue! I don't want to procrastinate it anymore (even though I am technically procrastinating from work by writing this now). But it's all good. It's been a couple of weeks since I got back from Colombia and I really missed it, I didn't have a burning desire to return home ( the community and weather was just so nice), I was also having so much fun going on little adventures. I think this might have been my favorite part: the adventures. Love.

So for those of you who do not know, my trip to Colombia was 100% God's work. I just remember one Thursday evening, before Winter break, I attended our InterVarsity(Christian fellowship on campus) group meeting and afterward I wanted to say hello to a woman I had met through friends, Denise. Denise is such a wonderful person, btw. Anyways, I kind of just poked my head into her conversation and became part of it, she and others were talking about their trip to Colombia over winter break and I was just asked what I would be doing and I said not much, and I was invited, just like that! Some would say that was sketchy, but I figured if I could raise the money then I should go because there's a reason for me to go. Thank you, Christmas, I was able to raise my money.

In Colombia, we stayed in this ranch-style place called Monte Sion which was run by evangelists. It was such a beautiful place, I knew I wanted to climb some kind of mountain while I was in Colombia and my first day there I did, in Monte Sion's "backyard," that's how beautiful it is there! It was very surreal, I felt so blessed. You could say that my reason for going there was to evangelize. I knew when I accepted to go that I would have a difficult time with the whole evangelism part because I didn't know how I felt about it. I have always taught myself to be respectful of people's beliefs and not to push anything on anyone.

I remember while I was there, I journaled about these feelings and struggles I was having. I do have to say that God was faithful, in the upcoming days, people very casually answered my questions or offered a reply in random times. It was crazy to see God work through them. I was really thankful to meet the people I did, everyone seemed to inspire me in their own way, especially the people I met that were close to/ my age, there. I think in terms of meeting people, it was very humbling to meet people who were so welcoming, so many people offered to take us out and show us around. While on our campaigns, we got the chance to talk to people, the day before our last day there Josh, Daniela, and I spoke to this cery young family about God and it was nice to see a family who was together and accepted God into their lives that day. Family was huge in Colombia, which may have prompted a breakdown over mine one night, but that's just more to pray about.

I think the trip definitely strengthened my faith and just made me continue to volunteer and travel, to get to know people and different places. There's nothing like it.

I'm sure, I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff in this post, but I can always blog about it more. If you have any questions, please ask :)

Back here on campus, I'm starting to feel more like myself and I'm also feeling blessed to have the friends that I do have here. I definitely don't have thousands of friends but I have the ones I need, which I appreciate. They're always there for me and spent so much time trying to cheer me up. :) Love you guys.

P.S. If you know anyone, who would be willing to donate to me, I'd like to send some money back to Monte Sion for letting me stay there for 11 days. Let me know! :) I have plenty of thank you cards I'd like to use. Love you all.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:


We made a fire and had an intimate/ fun conversation under a very starry sky.



This was in Sopo, such a beautiful little town, well at the top of a mountain, can you spot the person parsailing?



Lights in Chia, a city close to bogota, in the background, the little green dot is a Cathedral in the mountains.




This was during a campaign, the "youth" were dancing, at the end, Josh's hand is still in the air :)


Ajiaco: typical Colombian dish, self-explanatory. Nom nom nom.

Stars in New York

Today after I got out of my Frontiers of Science seminar at (8...at night), I looked up at the sky and saw a couple of stars. I immediately thought of my first night in Colombia, that night I was okay with tripping everywhere because I just wanted to look up at the sky. I don't know if I've ever seen that many stars:) I think I'm finally getting back into the groove of things. Whoo. I realized today that I need to break up with sleep, we no longer have a healthy relationship. :) Weekend's so close, I hope adventures lie ahead. Preferably to Brooklyn for thrift shopping/trading and pie! This was btw a tease for the Colombia post, it's coming really soon! Love you all.

Funk!

I need this to be my reminder everyday! Being in a funk is no good. I was just talking to Tanea and Diane about my blah attitude lately. I don't know what's wrong but apparantly I'm not hiding it. :/ When I was home for winter break my mom asked me if i was okay because I always look sad. Ouch. Hmm.

Feed the 500!

As part of InterVarsity's Winter Retreat, we were asked to participate in Feed the 500, or a smaller version. Feed the 500 is basically a day dedicated to putting together 500 lunches for people who need them. Essentially, you're supposed to grab a lunch for someone you meet in the city who may or may not be homeless and one for yourself. The first time I heard this part of it I got really excited because we'd be doing much more than handing someone a lunch and then running off. It had more humanity in it, for me. So once you've found someone, you're supposed to have your lunch with them and have fruitful conversation! Last time, we did this, I was able to have such an awesome experience! I think after the day, I was very grateful for the day. This time, I was placed in a larger group but it was all good because we also got to bond while on our adventure. If I could share something with you, it would be that we are all people and whether or not you're a Believer or not, God loves us all so much, more than we can begin to understand. I was able to meet a man today on 168th Street. I wasn't able to understand his name when he told it to me TWICE, haha, but we still had a good conversation. He only spoke Spanish, so that allowed me to step up. I asked him if it was okay for me to pray for him and he agreed. During our conversation, he told me that he was struggling, luchando, so I just pray for people who may find themselves on the streets for whatever reason: to be warm literally, but also to be warm with God's love in their hearts. Someone said something really great to me today, it was about Haiti and how our action to aid Haiti is so limited because we're far away, but we're here in New York and we can help people HERE. That touched me.

But anyways, I thought I'd share. I'm still processing, procrastinating writing about Colombia. I'll get to it! Um, but I think I still have the "Back to the Semester Blues," so hopefully those go away.

peace and love!

HEY!

So, I definitely need to work on being more consistent with my new blog! I went to Colombia and was so busy! But I can't wait to tell you about it. In the meanwhile, here's a picture of how beautiful Bogota was. All my love! Blog soonsoonsoon!

Lovely Saturday Night

I am so fascinated by this movie I just watched, Man on Wire!

Here's the trailer so you can grasp my fascination:



So, after coming home from spending time with the Coochies(kind of Kiyan's going away time), I wanted to watch a movie and decided on Man on Wire. I'll just say that it was an hour and a half of anxiety and fear! In a good way. It was amazing to see a man's dream come true. It was also very inspiring. The best thing about it might have been that I got to watch it with my little sister who I just had to show how high the Twin Towers actually were. Thank you Google. It made the bitter cold night very worth it<3.

Quote from the movie:
Phillipe Petit: (aka Small Phillipe:) )
"To me, it's really so simple, that life should be lived on the edge. You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourself to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on the tightrope."

Please watch Man on Wire! Oh! and I now have bangs! I'm excited.

2009- You were so good to me

Today was the first day of 2010 and it was a beautiful day, or is with 9 minutes to spare. I didn't really do much since I woke up at 1, roughly. I did have an awesome video chat with Kiyan and Sara though, which included a Lady Gaga dance party. Need I say more? I also got to see a lot of awesome stuff on blogs. It seems like everyday my dream of becoming an interior designer is affirmed. I of course imagine myself doing this as a hobby. Anywhom, as I was blogging today, I saw a lot of lists of things that make people happy. So I want to do one based on all the things that made me happy this year:

1. In early January, I was still celebrating my early admittance to Columbia University.




2. In March, YTI reunion happened and it was beautiful to be with Nathaniel, Margaret, and Sophie once again. We had a lovely little hotel room all to ourselves and were reunited with lovely friends from YTI. We also went to The Flying Biscuit Cafe, which I vow to return to as soon as I'm back in Atlanta. Oh Cabbagetown <3



3. April was the month of Paris. After months of intense fundraising, Paris finally happened. I'm still trying to process everything that happened but I am thankful for that beautiful week because it's where the Coochies fell in love and started their friendship...Who would have thought? Paris does something to you.



4. That week, I did lose someone very special to me. Elsa Matos, i love you and miss you incredibly. It was an unfortunate loss and my mind often wanders to that time you told me about your diagnosis, you were eating Chinese food with your daughters in your classroom, and when they stepped out. You told me. I started crying and you firmly told me to stop and that I should pray. <3 I hope you're looking down on me.


5. Senior year activities took over and I got to witness some awesome things: the completion of the yearbook (my baby), my best friend receive an award for improving the best in high school (how awesome), fall in front of my senior class while dancing to "Best I Eva' Had" with Kiyan, and graduate. I soon saw my closest friends off to college and secretly took mental snaps of each of them, trying to grasp on to our pre-collegeness. I graduated and donated 1o inches of my hair to Locks of Love!



6. I started my summer program at Columbia and made fabulous friends with the most awesome students of Columbia Class of 2013, let's be honest:)
-I explored the city.
-Walked the Brooklyn Bridge (I was very scared).
-Realized I had made the right decision of attending Columbia University.
-Played dress up with Tanea and Lindsey with our $5 finds from Urban Outfitters!
-Saw "In The Heights"
...and more awesome things I can't remember.


7. Saw Kiyan off to Stanford in September, cried for a good couple of days. Love you.
8. STARTED MY SEMESTER AT COLUMBIA!
9. Went to my first college class,my first lecture, my first frat party(it's definitely a first lol), danced a lot, decorated my room like it was my home. It's my 116 square inches of HOME.
10. Attended the Equality March in Washington D.C. for something I believe in with all my heart, and met up with Sabre and Sara among all those thousands of people. SO surreal.



11. Stayed up late with Diane, at least 4 times. Once, until 8 in the morning where I saw the sun rise over Columbia. Beautiful and grueling at the same time.
12. Had a dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Central Park West and entered the nicest, most-expensive place probably forever. Thank you, scholarship.
13. Discovered Williamsburg, Brooklyn with Tanea.
14. Returned to Williamsburg to see John Mayer in concert...for free! <3



15. Saw Hair...for free and got to thank Gavin Creel for allowing me to attend the Equality March...for free. ( I love Free) This definitely included dancing on a Broadway stage :D
16. Got to hang out with awesome people on campus,who I get to call my friends. How lucky.
17. Overall, I learned so much, inside and outside of the classroom. Life was so good.

I'm so looking forward to everything that's to come. I finally watched Amelie, the other day, and this quick quote stayed with me: "I dream of better days ahead."

I love you, for reading this long post.